Hawid Mount Sizing Question

I have never used Hawid mounts before but would like to for an upcoming project. Is the size listed for strips the stamp height the strips are designed to be used with? For example, if I have a stamp measuring 29mm would I need the strips listed as 29mm or would the slightly larger 30 be the one to use?

Thanks in advance,
Dale

I just purchased some myself to try and seems to be if you have a 29mm stamp and use a 29mm mount you will have about 1mm margin at top. I was expecting a little more margin at top.

I just have strips. For example, a 29mm strip is 33mm tall. You meed to allow about 1.5mm for the seam.

Hello.
Here's what a 48 stamp looks like on a 48 Hawid mount.
Regards.

I like to add 5mm to the height and width of the actual stamp size to obtain the size of the mount. This gives you 2.5mm extra on all sides. But, be sure the size you choose will fit in your album space. Scott International "Blue" pages are a bit smaller and Minkus Supreme Global is smaller still.

The vast number of oversized mounts I've seen over the years with much smaller stamps inside them suggests a serious math deficiency in this country. People just use whatever mount they have lying around, apparently, and iIt just makes albums look awful. A stamp that measures 29 mm high will either fit into a 29 mm size mount or into a slightly larger mount, but you'd have to read the directions for those mounts to be sure. Or just try the stamp in the different mounts and see which fits best.

Along with oversized mounts that look bad is the inability to mount the mounts level, so they end up higher or lower than neighboring mounts. The end result of all this is sloppy-looking albums, and I've seen a lot of those.

With the stamp in the mount, there should be a border of mount around the stamp to frame it. At least with black-backed mounts. With clear mounts the size of the mount and the border around the stamp (and mounting it precisely on the same line as neighboring mounts) are far less critical since you don't really see the mounts like you do with black-backed mounts. With those, being a little "off" can be very noticeable.

I'm not sure how many people insert the stamp into a mount before trimming the mount to size, but it would make the process easier even if it is more risky.

A lot of this also depends on the preprinted pages if you are using them.I have mainly Scott Specialty series albums and find that the dotted borders for the stamps sometimes leave a lot to be desired, especially on older pages, rather than the newer supplement pages.

I use black mounts and like to hide the dotted outlines. On the older pages the stamp sets are usually joined together in a row making the allowance between stamps fixed. In some cases the height of the dotted box is way too high for the stamp intended for that spot and you end up with huge margins at the top. In other cases the dotted box is too small, which makes centring the stamps in a row a challenge.

No need to make it so complicated. Hawid mounts are open at the top so you don't need as many sizes as if they were split mounts. Mounts up to 33 mm are all the same price (may depend somewhat on the supplier) - just buy 33 and trim the top when required. The next size range is 36 mm to 63 mm and they are all priced the same. So just get 63 and you're set. Ditto for 66 mm to 86 mm.

Some collectors buy split mounts and cut them in half horizontally to make top loading mounts. That's more work than I care to do.

Germania nicely summed up what I was going to say:




For me the big nuisance of split back's (which require fairly precise vertical sizing) was all the different sizes one had to keep on hand. Top mounts can be trimmed to size. I buy Hawid 63 mm tall strips and use a Fiskars Paper Trimmer to cut to size. I only use mounts for mint and sometimes older stamps, used stamps are hinged.




I do this when I can save some money with Showgard Seconds.

My problem with top-loading mounts is stamps falling out of them or slipping inside them so they aren't in place anymore. With split-back mounts, the stamps are held more firmly in place and, if the mount is the right size, they stay there better. So there is a good reason for using split-back mounts. But, yes, the different sizes required for split-backs can get frustrating.

As for Scott page layouts, I agree with PMStamp. I have no idea why Scott can't get their stamp boxes sized properly, particularly after all these years and with the modern technology available? Their printing also sometimes leaves something to be desired with parts of borders of the stamp boxes sometimes being printed too incompletely. And I've always disliked their habit of using continuous rows of stamps where each border is the border of two adjoining boxes. It looks bad and it certainly makes fitting a stamp mount into those pages almost impossible. Their pages were designed for a stamp world that used only hinges, but that doesn't really work any more. It just seems lazy to me to not correct this. Each stamp, no matter how modest, deserves its own box, one reason I love the look of older albums like Schaubek or KaBe which laid their pages out this way much more elegantly. If only that look would come back.

Split back mounts can damage mint stamps, leaving a horizonal line across the gum of the stamp.

Getting the stamp box sizes 'right' is quite difficult, editing and managing 100,000s of dimensions is not a simple task. Additionally, there are some stamps which vary greatly (i.e. early US stamps). Pragmatic solutions are often less than ideal. And like most things in life, you can never make everyone happy (some folks want the mount to cover the bounding box line while others want the mount to fit nicely with the lines showing).
Don

I've found a quick solution to getting the mount aligned with other mounts on the page is to use a clear plastic Linn's multi gage as a sort of bumper stop. Place it across the bottom or top of the adjoining stamp mounts and push the mount up against it. No other adjoining stamps? line it up with the Scott dotted boxes.(i'm another collector who would like for Scott to change this feature. it's too random.) easy peasy neat n tidy. Also a showgard mount gauge takes all the guesswork out of finding the right mount. it's only a couple bucks and has showgard and hawid mount sizes on it.

Thank you Germania & moneil, I was looking for some mounts and found some 36 Hawid mounts that I forgot that I had. I can't tell how much money I wasted buying different size mounts, when two basic sizes work for most stamps. I like singles with plate #s and this takes the guesswork out of the equation. Thanks for waking me up.